College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

The College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics is a leader in undergraduate and graduate student research. Housed in a complex that includes the recently completed, state-of-the-art Hall of Science, the Molecular and Life Sciences Center, the Microbiology Building, and Faculty Office 3, the college's six departments offer 22 degree programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

CNSM Spotlights

Featured in this month's Inside CSULB is the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) program as it enters its second decade at CSULB directed by Paul Buonora, Ph.D., and Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. RISE aims to help reduce the existing gap in the completion of Ph.D. degrees between underrepresented and non-underrepresented students. Buonora notes that the financial support the program provides is key: "...In the last two years we have had 75 percent of RISE students go on to a Ph.D. program... We like to think that a lot of that is because we are training them to be researchers making them better applicants for doctorate programs."

An education at CSULB is more than just four walls in a classroom. Students in BIOL 454B, Research in Tropical Terrestrial Ecology, traveled to Costa Rica during the Spring 2015 semester to spend 10 days immersed in tropical environments - the dry season at Palo Verde National Park and the La Selva Protected Zone, one of Central America's best-known tropical rainforest research stations with Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Theodore Stankowich and Professor Dessie Underwood. Armed with night cameras, students saw elusive ocelots, and they saw many other animals and plants not found in a traditional classroom.

It is rare, short-lived, stinky, beautiful, and a CSULB newsmaker. It is the Corpse Lily (Amorphophallus titanium), a.k.a. Titan Arum, and it resides in the Hall of Science rooftop greenhouse at CSULB. A short lived bloom - no more than 48 hours, it is one of the two CSULB Corpse Lilies curated by Biological Sciences greenhouse technician, Brian Thorson. The flower, named "Laura" in honor Dean Kingsford, bloomed in the early morning hours of Tuesday, 6/16/2015, as reported in the Long Beach Press Telegram. The bloom of the Titan Arum is typically between 6 and 8 feet tall and it emits a foul odor of rotting flesh, thus the name corpse flower. These plants are uncommon in cultivation and blooms are even more rare.

News @ the Beach reports that Chemistry Graduate Student, Skylar Chuang, took first place in the Graduate Physical and Mathematical Sciences category at the annual California State University systemwide research competition for his research, "The Role of Nonogold apo# Reconstituted Vehichles (NERVs) as Potential Drug Delivery Systems." Chuang's research was conducted under the advisement of Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty members Vasanthy Narayanswami, Young-Seok Shon, and Deepali Bhandari.